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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

6 years. That's how long we have been parents. That's how long we have been Samantha's parents. In some ways that's nearly impossible to believe, how has it been 6 years since she changed our lives so completely?! In other ways, it seems hard to believe she hasn't always been part of our life.

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April 2013 PK class pictures

At 6 years old, Samantha is 46 inches tall and weighs 43.6 pounds. She wears size 5 pants (occasionally a pair of VERY cinched up size 6 pants or a pair of 3T shorts!), size 5 or 6 shirts, size 6 dresses and size 12.5 shoes. Her walking problem is completely resolved and she runs all over with her friends.

Field trip to Dinosaur Valley

Her favorite color is purple, her favorite food is sausage pizza and cheese pizza, and some others that she likes a lot are spaghetti, strawberries, clementines, cooked (not raw) broccoli, and berry French toast bake. Her favorite thing to do right now is play with Legos, especially Lego friends. She got three Lego friends sets for Christmas and built them all in less than a week, completely by herself. Her favorite game is Labyrinth, which was also a Christmas gift. Other games she enjoys playing are Candy Land, Guess Who, Clue Jr and Catan Jr.

May 2013

Samantha likes Fancy Nancy, Lalaloopsy, Littlest Pet Shop and dress up. She chooses to wear dresses very frequently, but she also loves to dig in the dirt and climb trees in our back yard. She plays with her baby dolls, especially her bitty twin, Sarah.

Her absolute favorite activity, though, is reading. Anytime she is very quiet and we don't see her, she is snuggled in somewhere reading a book. She reads everything she can get her hands on, even reading Magic Tree House books in an afternoon. She will often tell me something and when I ask her how she knew that, she tells me that she read it. She has known the difference between fiction and non-fiction for quite some time as a result. We have also had discussions about the fact that just because something is non-fiction does not always mean that it is true...it might be someone's opinion or the author might be mistaken about something, so we have also learned to look at multiple sources about something before trying to decide if it is REALLY true.

She finished preschool in May and the kids all dressed up as what they want to be when they grow up. She chose to be a mail carrier and the postal employees here let us borrow a hat and mail bag for her to use during her PK graduation. That was wonderful! She just told me though, as she read this, that she doesn't want to be a mail carrier anymore. She isn't sure what she wants to do, but said that she might want to do what I do. Aaawww :)

Samantha and Emory at PK graduation May 2013

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She started kindergarten this year and we are homeschooling. She is reading somewhere around a 2nd-3rd grade level and she loves doing math. Handwriting is her nemesis. We do that first, find creative ways to sneak it in to other things, and do math last...as her reward for doing everything else. Whatever works, right?

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1st day of Kinder August 2013

Samantha loves drawing, painting and just about any type of art project. As long as it is one that she gets to do what she wants rather than follow directions. She would much rather do her own thing.

Playing with Jacob - April 2013

June 2013 Watching a butterfly as its wings dried from emerging from its chrysalis

She loves her brother and plays very well with him...most of the time. She never leaves him out, even when her friends are over, he is always welcome to play...at least as long as he is following her rules. Yes, she is a little, or a lot, bossy. We are working on that. Another thing we are working on is honesty. For the longest time, we could depend on her to always tell the truth when she was questioned about something. Then she started lying when she thought she would be in trouble. We have had many talks about her needing to always tell the truth. She is sad when we don't believe her but she will tell us that if she always told the truth we would always believe her. So she is starting to understand. And the lying is MUCH less frequent than it was.

At her 5th birthday party in late Jan 2013

She has a silly language that she speaks with her brother, and it even has grammar rules. For example, one day she was telling me that a word in silly language meant one thing, I don't remember exactly what, then a few minutes later she said another silly language word meant the same thing. At least that's what I thought. She corrected me. The first word was singular, the second word was the plural. And they were similar words, I could definitely see how the second was a form of the first.

Mrs. Josie and Samantha Feb 2013

Eden and Samantha Feb 2013

At the beginning of the year, Samantha would have replied without any hesitation, that Eden was her best friend. She was very sad when Eden's family moved away at the beginning of March, and she still misses Eden. She surprises me by bringing her name up or suddenly bursting into tears about missing Eden when it has been a month or more since she last mentioned her to me. She has drawn pictures for her, though, and lately has been asking me when we can go to Abilene to visit Eden.﻿﻿

Sarah T and Samantha Feb 2013

Now, Samantha has two best friends, Jocelyn and Sarah T. She loves to spend time with them, as well as her other friends, Rebekah, Ruthie, Emory, Sarah S., Phoebe and Luke G. Her favorite days are our monthly park days when she gets to be with almost all of those aforementioned friends plus many others.

Getting ready for the dance recital

She still takes tap and ballet class and she told me that her second favorite day each month is the day she has dance class. She had her second dance recital in May and she looked so grown up! Something funny about the week of her recital was a conversation we had when we were on the way to her dress rehearsal. As we got in the car, she told me that she was almost like a ballerina. I told her that she is a ballerina because ballerinas dance ballet and she dances ballet. She said that she isn't, that she almost looks like one, but she doesn't really look like one. I tried to tell her that it isn't about how she looks, but she would not listen to me at all. When we got to the dance studio, I told her teacher what she had said. Her teacher agreed that being a ballerina is not about how she looks but about what she does, dance ballet. She also told her that she looks beautiful in her costume and with her hair up in a bun. When she got home, she told her Daddy that she is a ballerina, that her teacher said so. Good grief! At least she finally got it, even if she didn't believe me about it.

For Halloween this year, she decided very early, I think in July, what she wanted to be and there was no question in her mind. She never wavered, she was going to be Wonder Woman. So we searched and searched until we finally found a Wonder Woman costume in her size online. She was so excited when it came!

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Samantha is so much fun to be around most of the time. She has a lovely smile and an infectious giggle. There is a lot of laughter at our house most days. She isn't much of a snuggler, except at bedtime, and when I am snuggling her in her bed, we often have some really good conversations. She really does think things through and I am sometimes surprised by her insight. She has always been and will always be God's gift, God's grace, to us and we continue to remain grateful for her.